NGC5894

NGC 5894 is a barred? spiral in Draco below the bowl of the Little Dipper about 120 million light-years distant. That makes it about 120,000 light-years across, a rather large spiral. I put a question mark after barred because some papers listed it that way and I can't see the bar. Though it is so edge-on I assume they are using radio observations of hydrogen flow to make this designation. Still, if some pros are questioning it, I put it in. NED officially classifies it as SBdm? I don't know if their question mark is for the barred status or something else. The NGC Project classifies it as SB?c-Irr showing they do question the barred status. They call it a somewhat irregular spiral while the NGC project says it is a Magellanic irregular, a more specific type. Seligman says simply SBm not questioning anything but not getting into if it is a c or d type spiral. When dealing with galaxies this edge on this difference of opinion isn't unusual. So much for astronomy as an exact science.

I put it on my list for the odd fine blue line of star-forming regions. It may be broad when seen from above or below but edge-on it is very thin and stands out. Arp put a few like this in his filament classification. It also made my list for being listed as a flat galaxy in the 2Mass Flat Galaxy Catalog as 2MFGC 12297. The Galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on May 25, 1788. Oddly, I first looked at this data on May 25, 2016, 228 years later. OK, maybe not so odd considering I've imaged more than 365 of Herschel's galaxy discoveries so it is rather expected one would get first looked at in my data on its anniversary. Also looked at and processed are two different things allowing two anniversary dates for many of these. It isn't in either of the Herschel 400 observing programs.

It is a rather lonely galaxy with nothing but very distant companions. NED lists quite a few UvES objects in the field. These are quasar candidates but without accurate spectroscopic redshift. Some could be stars in our galaxy with spectral characteristics misleading the photometric redshift measurement. Though those it lists as UvES rarely are disproved. The field has quite a few UvS objects as well. They too are quasar candidates but most turn up false alarms. Thus I excluded those only shown as UvS objects from being annotated. Quite a few galaxy groups are listed as well. I'd not call groups of a dozen or less a cluster but that's how these are listed. All have only photographic redshift measurements. Not being possible single stars the error that plagues UvES candidate quasars doesn't apply. In one case the Bright Cluster Galaxy had its own spectroscopic redshift which I listed as well as the photographic one. A "p" denotes photographic redshifts.

One galaxy interested me but I found nothing much on it. That is ASK 111220.0 at 950 million light-years to the northwest of NGC 5894 (upper right). It has a plume off the eastern end. There may be one on the western end but then a brilliant blue object dominates. NED lists the blue object as a UvS object but without any redshift determination. It may be a separate object that may or may not be interacting with the galaxy, blue star-forming region in the galaxy or something far from the galaxy. I found nothing to help here. If unrelated I'd expect a more symmetrical look to the galaxy with an opposing plume or arm but that's not the case.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5894

NGC5899

NGC 5899 and NGC 5900 are a pair of "non-interacting" galaxies north of the "kite" of Bootes. Redshift puts them about 120 million light-years distant. I put "non-interacting" in quotes as I'm not convinced that is the case. Both have large faint halos. That of NGC 5900 seems to point down toward NGC 5899. The spiral structure of NGC 5899 seems quite unusual with one heavy arm defined by many bright star clouds of newly formed stars. The arm on the other side is hard to define. Most of the disk is full of irregular star streams that have only a vague spiral pattern to them. NGC 5900 has an intense red dust lane often seen in interacting spirals seen edge-on. Three other NGC galaxies are in the image NGC 5893, 5895 and 5896. A 6th NGC object turns out to be just a field star, NGC 5901.

NGC 5893 and NGC 5900 were found by William Herschel on April 9, 1787. They aren't in any H400 program. NGC 5895 and NGC 5896 were discovered by R. J. Mitchell on May 23, 1854. NGC 5899 was found by William Herschel on March 18, 1878. It is in the second H400 program.

NGC 5896 is classed by the NGC project as a compact galaxy. Though it appears to be a spiral galaxy with rather tightly wound spiral arms, especially the northern one. NED didn't try to classify it. NGC 5895 was also not classified by NED, though the NGC project says Sc. The barred spiral NGC 5893 has mostly featureless spiral arms, though the southern one has a detached part that is full of bright star clouds. On the northeastern side is an object NED classifies as a separate galaxy with a redshift nearly identical to NGC 5893. Is it really a separate galaxy or another star cloud? I've marked it as a galaxy in the annotated image though I am not certain this is the case. Though it could be the remains of a cannibalized galaxy's core. That would account for NGC 5893's odd spiral structure that makes it look somewhat like the CBS eye as well as the large plumes beyond the main arm structure.

This was taken on a night of rather good transparency compared to what I'd been seeing for many months. Still not up to what used to be a good night. Still, galaxies down past 23rd magnitude are seen in the image. I'd been lucky to hit 21st magnitude for many months. This allowed me to note many galaxy clusters in the image. Several are seen north of NGC 5899.

The 6th magnitude M2 giant star sent nasty glare across much of the field. While not as nasty as I get from blue stars it was no fun to deal with. Removing the glare greatly attenuated the apparent brightness of the star as well.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5899

NGC5905

NGC 5905 and 5908 are a pair of spiral galaxies in Draco less than a degree north of Bootes. They are a bit under 160 million light-years away. Most sources say they are not interacting. Though NGC 5905 certainly looks like it was torn up by some interaction in the recent past. NED and the NGC Project classify NGC 5905 as SB(r)b;HII Sy1 and SBb respectively. For NGC 5908 they both say Sb though one paper says it could possibly be Sc based on its very small core. Assuming a distance of about 155 million light-years these are large spiral, NGC 5908 is about the size of our galaxy at 122,000 light-years. Measuring the full extent of NGC 5905's distorted arms I get a size of 240,000 light-years making it an extremely large spiral though this is more due to its distortion than its being very massive as spirals go. Prior to being drawn out it likely was no larger than NGC 5908.

Most papers say NGC 5908 is very similar to the Sombrero Galaxy, M104. I suppose this is due to the very small core and a huge halo surrounding the galaxy along with a very well defined dark lane. Though the halo about M104 is far larger than the disk the disk of 5908 appears to be slightly larger than the halo.

While NED says 5905 is a Seyfert 1 galaxy a note at NED disagrees saying Seyfert 2 whose true nature is hidden by the HII emission. In any case, it certainly has an actively feeding black hole at its core. There were to Tully-Fisher distance measurements at NED for NGC 5905 that place it at about 140 million light-years. No non-redshift measurements were available for NGC 5908 that I found.

Both were discovered by William Herschel on May 5, 1788. They aren't in either H400 program run by the Astronomical League.

Look closely at the annotated image and you will find a couple dwarf galaxies with similar redshifts showing they are members of the same group. East of NGC 5908 is a pair of apparently interacting galaxies, KUG 1515+556 at 370 million light-years. The northern member is very blue and small but seems to have a large plume to the southwest. The lower galaxy is far larger and redder. It too seems surrounded by a plume of stars. At my resolution, they appear to overlap. Sure wish we could get a closer look at this pair. NED shows no papers about them.

There are several quasars in the image, two of which with redshifts greater than 2. There are several galaxy clusters as well one with its bright cluster galaxy visible at 5 billion light-years in my image. It must be a huge and brilliant galaxy.

As usual, UvES objects are likely quasars but haven't been confirmed spectroscopically with redshift being determined photometrically instead as noted by a "p" after the distance.

This is my last May 2012 object. June was a surprisingly good month but due to its lack of dark time, I need two nights to get an object. Once in a while, I got more than one but less than two. Still, it was twice as productive as February of 2012 or January and February this year.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5905

NGC5906

Usually called the Splinter Galaxy, it is located in southwestern Draco. While many NGC galaxies carry two NGC designations those refer to the entire galaxy. That isn't the original situation here. It seems William Herschel found the bright eastern side on May 5, 1788. I say that as his coordinates point to that side of the object. Later on April 13, 1850 George Stoney using Lord Rosse's 72" reflector saw the western half. Dreyer gave the eastern side Herschel found the NGC 5907 number and the western side NGC 5906 to keep them in right ascension order. Today most consider NGC 5907 the identity of the entire galaxy though that wasn't the case in Herschel's time. For instance, NED gives both the NGC 5706 and 5707 number to the galaxy while Seligman notes the distinction but adds most treat it the way NED does. The western side is very blue while the eastern side is much brighter and somewhat red in color. Nearly all the detail is in the western half, below the dust lane. I find many different distances for this galaxy. For now, I'll say it is 40 or so million light-years away though red shift puts it closer, that is often less accurate than other distance estimate methods.

This is a very early image of mine from 2007 when I was working in ignorance. I severely underexposed it. Too bad as a year later it was announced the galaxy has a huge, very faint tidal stream that circles around it. I doubt even my standard exposure used today would pick it up but at least I'd have a better image to display.

If you haven't seen the tidal stream it can be seen here https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080619.html among other locations. A search for the galaxy on most any search engines will turn up more on this feature.

NED classifies the entire galaxy as SA(s)c: sp HII: Seligman's simpler system says Sc?. I'd love to know what this looks like face-on. It appears to me that the eastern blue arms are warped below the bright red disk of the galaxy since we can't see but the western side.

As this one was done before I began researching the field of my images I don't have my usual coverage of this one. When I find the time, and maybe retake a better version, this will suffice. At the time I didn't know how to remove satellite trails so a polar orbiting something made the streak on the right side.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=3x10' RGB=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5906

NGC5915

USGC S244 is a trio of interacting galaxies in central Libra about 110 million light-years distant by redshift measurement. The trio is composed of NGC 5915, NGC 5916 and NGC 5916A. All three appear significantly distorted by tidal interactions. I wish we could see a time lapse movie of the last few billion years to see how these three have tangled over that great time. While they all carry rather ordinary classifications, one note says of NGC 5915, it lies outside the classification system but then goes on to classify it anyway. NED's classification is SB(s)ab pec.

Of the three, NGC 5915 seems the most strange and has massive star formation occurring as shown by the mass of star knots near and around its core. Most blend, due to my poor seeing this low in the sky, into a mass that looks somewhat like a bar though those around the edges do resolve. The galaxy is listed as having a strong HII emission from all parts but is strongest from the lower arm. Unfortunately at a redshift of z=0.007 it lies outside the pass band of my H alpha filter so I can't pick it up. I think the orange object right where the southern arm meets the bar is just a field star in our galaxy though in the Sloan image it comes out green for some reason. An orange star normally wouldn't do that so it may be a real feature of the galaxy. It isn't a large galaxy with a size of only about 40,000 light-years. However if you look really close you will see a faint plume to the north that if included brings it to about 51,000 light-years.

To the south NGC 5916 is somewhat more normal looking if you ignore the large plumes. NED classifies it as SB(rs)a pec In this case the galaxy is turning quite red but for these plumes indicating star formation pretty much ceased over a billion years ago. The arm on the eastern side of the core has a field star in it that, while it looks like it is part of the galaxy is actually just a star in our galaxy. Thanks to its large plumes it is some 100,000 light-years in diameter. Though I suspect prior to the interaction it was about the same size as NGC 5915.

Both were discovered by John Herschel on the night of June 5, 1836.

NGC 5916A is a somewhat more normal looking galaxy but still classified as peculiar. It is considered an SB(s)c pec galaxy though I can't see enough of its arm structure to see how that was obtained. When I went to image this trio The Sky Pro 6's database listed both it and NGC 5916 as NGC 5916, no "A" used. So it seemed to say both were the same. Though when I told the scope to slew to 5916 it went to the right one and it also went to the right one when I entered 5916A. Just that its on screen identification of them is messed up. Internally it knows which is which. I found this very confusing when I went to add it to my to-do file.

Being low in the sky and approaching the Zone of Avoidance this field is very poorly studied as to galaxies. Only one other galaxy had redshift data. Normally I'd not have bothered with an annotated image for such a poorly studied field but it did contain three faint asteroid trails that likely couldn't be found unless I did point them out. Thus I made a very sparse annotated image. The fourth galaxy is 12 times more distant and thus not related to the three that make up USGC S244. Many others are seen faintly in the image. Only a half dozen were even listed at NED, all without even a magnitude let alone any distance data. I didn't bother noting them as they are listed only by coordinates.

Being so low in the sky this is one difficult area for me to image. The horrid conditions I've had for many months now made things even worse. While this was taken the best night I had this spring it still was a poor night. A lot of detail both faint and fine was lost to poor seeing and transparency. The poor conditions meant that out of the 10 asteroids in the field only three were bright enough for me to pick up. On a good night all should have been within range. This was a field for confusion as to asteroids as well. One I do very faintly show though it may not show in the annotated image unless you enhance the heck out of it, is (431687) 2008 DZ34. The minor planet center listed it twice, once with the 431687 number and once without. Without it had a note that reobservation of it in late May through June was desired. The entry with the number had no such note. It is lost in my neighbor's trees at that time and almost at the horizon so I won't be helping them out.

Besides lousy conditions the sky suddenly cleared with just time to grab this field before it vanished into my Meridian Tree. I had no time to properly cool the scope. It had been raining earlier so I couldn't open to cool in case it cleared. This is why the stars are particularly wonky looking. Hot air trapped along the top of the SCT tube creates flat sided stars. This low I have only a small window between trees I can't cut down due to lakeshore regulations so I put up with wonky stars from time to time when its the only chance to get the object.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5915

NGC5921

NGC 5921 is a pretty face on barred spiral galaxy in Serpens Caput about 3 degrees north of M5. It is well worth visiting when viewing the far more commonly targeted M5. Its distance seems poorly understood. Redshift puts it at 70 million light-years. A 1988 Tully-Fisher determination says 82 but a 2009 T-F measurement came up with 46. An analysis of supernova 2001X says 67 which is in good agreement with the red-shift measurement. Still, based on the star clouds I see in the galaxy I would have to think the closer 46 million light-year estimate is closer to the correct distance. I doubt I'd resolved these as well at the longer distances. NED classes it SB(r)bc LINER. The NGC project says SBbc. It was discovered by William Herschel on May 1, 1786. It isn't in either of the H400 programs.

While NED shows thousands of galaxies in my image only one has a redshift. It is CGCG 049-140 at 580 million light-years. It is the round blue galaxy at the very top of the image a bit right of center. None of the other galaxies had a redshift at NED. All the other galaxies are from either the 2MASS catalog or the Sloan survey. Except for three in the extended PGC catalog, none of the rest made any secondary catalog.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RB=2x10' G=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5921

NGC5943

This field contains 4 NGC galaxies, all either interacting or distorted by past interactions plus a 5th rather normal one. The field is located in northeastern Bootes. All are likely members of the same local group about a quarter billion light-years distant by redshift measurement. One or two "lesser" members of the group are in the field as well.

NGC 5934 and NGC 5935 are an obvious pair of interacting galaxies. Both have plumes drawn out of them by the interaction. NGC 5934 is listed as a spiral of questionable classification. NGC 5935 is listed as S? as well by the NGC Project but NED leaves off the question mark. To me, they both look odd. I wouldn't argue with NGC 5935 being S0 but 5934 looks unquestionably spiral to me. Maybe they mean they can't decide what type of spiral it is, barred or not barred. Below the pair is KISSR 1955 a starburst galaxy with a faint outer halo. Starburst activity can be triggered by interaction with another galaxy but this isn't necessary.

NGC 5945 is a nice face on barred spiral whose arms overlap making a pseudo-ring. Besides these rings, there are two outer arm segments that see to make huge "ears" on the east and west sides of the galaxy. Inside the ring on the west side is a "bright" object listed as SDSS J152943.21+425511.2, a star and [BFW2006] J232.42996+42.91977 a galaxy. So is it a star or a galaxy. Its distance measurement is about the same as NGC 5945 but it is a friend of a friend estimate rather than spectroscopically determined. So is it a star or a galaxy? Of NED's 5 entries for this object 4 call it a galaxy. While it is hard to measure the PSF of an object on top of another what I am seeing is identical to a star of similar magnitude in the image. That would indicate it is quite small in angular size, more like a star than a galaxy but if this is all that's left of the core of a cannibalized galaxy. That might explain the "ears".

The main target of my interest in taking this field, however, is NGC 5943. This galaxy is very fuzzy with large plumes. I didn't realize how large when I took this image or I'd have put a lot more time into it (weather willing which likely would not have allowed it). Faintly seen in my image are two huge plumes going to the northwest and southeast. It too has a near starlike companion, ASK 245539.0. Though its PSF is very galaxy like so easy to confirm it is a galaxy. Usually, plumes like those seen in 5943 are due to a merger. In this case, it might be that the companion is still in the process of merging. Note the brightest part of the plume leads nearly to ASK 245539.0. Unfortunately, I find no papers on either NGC 5943 or NGC 5945.

The ordinary looking NGC galaxy, NGC 5947 is a rather pretty face on barred spiral with many arm segments. I didn't think about it when picking the center coordinates for the image as I was thinking only of the other 4. This resulted in it being chopped off on the eastern side. The other nice spiral in the image is CGCG 222-012. Smaller than NGC 5947 and tilted at a rather steep angle it is difficult to see its structure. While no bar is seen nor is it classified as a barred spiral the arms I see seem to start well out from the core as if coming from the ends of an unseen bar. It too appears to be a member of the same group as the others. Several more are out of the field.

NGC 4934, NGC 4935 and NGC 4945 were discovered by Édouard Stephan on June 12, 1880. He found NGC 4943 and NGC 5947 on June 18, 1880.

Unfortunately, seeing was very poor for this image. There's a lot of fine detail in all of these galaxies I failed to pick up due to the seeing. I hope to try again for it if the weather ever permits. This isn't representative of the field I'm sorry to say.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5943

NGC5949

NGC 5949 is a very flocculent galaxy in Draco just under Ursa Minor. Redshift puts it only 21 million light-years distant. However, the redshift value is rather unreliable at such close range due to the galaxies own motions likely being greater and thus swamping the cosmological measurement. Various Tully-Fisher measurements cover a rather large range from 33 million to 63 million light-years. The most modern estimates are coming in at about 45 to 50 million light-years which pretty well matches the resolution of its features in my image. I'll go with the lower end and say 45 million light-years. That makes this little feller about 30,000 light-years in diameter. NED classifies it as SA(r)bc? though how you find spiral arms in all those segments I don't know. The NGC project says more simply Sc and Seligman says Sbc. The galaxy was discovered on November 28, 1801 by, who else, William Herschel. It isn't to be found in either of the Herschel 400 lists. So why did I take it? I like flocculent galaxies and this one is so flocculent I see no hint of a spiral pattern in the so-called arm segments. Some of these are HII regions according to notes at NED but they indicate these regions are faint so I didn't try the H alpha filter on them even though this is one of the rare galaxies with a low enough redshift the emission is within my 6nm wide passband.

This galaxy has low contrast in its flocculent structure compared to most of its type such as NGC 2976 and the very high contrast NGC 4605. All have been processed to about the same contrast level.

While NED lists over 2500 galaxies in my field this is the only one with a redshift value. NED lists one QSO candidate that is seen through the galaxy but even in the Sloan image, I can't see it so it certainly isn't in my image. NED lists two other quasar candidates I can find but NED lists them first as stars which indicates it feels they likely won't hold up when the final research is in. The Minor Planet Center reports that out of the 791,260 asteroids it is tracking not one brighter than 23rd magnitude is in my frame. Thus I didn't bother to prepare an annotated image.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5949

NGC5963

NGC 5963 and NGC 5965 are a nice pair of interesting, but unrelated, galaxies in Draco. NGC 5963 is a low surface brightness galaxy except for its core region which I had to greatly attenuate so it didn't overwhelm the image. It is thought to be rather close by but distance measurements vary wildly. Redshift would put it about 32 million light-years away. Tully-Fisher measurements range from 48 to 110 million light-years. All the more modern Tully-Fisher measurements range from about 90 to 110 million light-years. So maybe going with an average of 100 million light-years is about right? While NGC 5963 is an interesting, very blue, galaxy I was really interested in NGC 5965.

NGC 5965 is a near edge-on spiral galaxy with a rather warped disk located about 160 million light-years away. Both redshift and Tully-Fisher measurements put it about this distance. The question is what warped its disk? It is surrounded by at least 9 dwarf galaxies with a similar redshift. Many are out of my field since I put it high in order to also capture NGC 5963. They differ little from those in the image but for CGCG 297-017 which is a distorted dwarf spiral. I can't fathom a dwarf of its size warping a much larger galaxy but suppose it might happen. Notice that the warped disk isn't the only distortion to the galaxy. "Above" the core region there are two curved brighter regions, looking almost like small curved horns in the galaxy's halo. I found nothing on either feature in the literature. They may just be star clouds in the disk of the galaxy but I doubt that. I'm wondering if the warped disk and these bright areas are due to a merger in the recent past with one or two dwarf companions. Pure speculation on my part but does seem to fit what I'm seeing.

NGC 5963 and NGC 5965 were discovered by William Herschel on May 5, 1788. They aren't in either of the H400 programs

There are several quasars in the image as well as several Ultraviolet Excess Sources which are likely quasars as well. UvES objects are determined photographically so don't have the spectral data to confirm them as quasars. Hence the classification based on their strong Uv emissions. One quasar is listed at only 2.5 billion light-years and appears to have a slight bit of fuzz around it. A couple catalogs list it as a galaxy though the Sloan survey calls it a quasar. I've given it both designations on the annotated image.

Two other NGC galaxies are in the image down in the lower left corner, NGC 5969 and NGC 5971. They were found by Lewis Swift on August 5, 1885.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5963

NGC5964

NGC 5964/IC 4551 is a low surface brightness barred spiral with a bright bar but faint arms. To my eye, the bar is somewhat bowed rather than straight as most bars are. It is located in Serpens Caput about 73 million light-years distant by redshift and 87 million by the mean of other non-redshift measurements. NED classifies it as SB(rs)d with the possibility it has an AGN core. Seligman and the NGC Project say it is SBcd with no mention of a ring or the AGN. I can't see the ring either. Assuming the redshift indicated distance it is about 113,000 light-years across. Using the larger non-redshift distance it is almost 135,000 light-years in size. Either way, it is a large spiral.

The galaxy was discovered on April 24, 1830 by John Herschel (his dad missed it). That got it the NGC number. It was later seen by Lewis Swift on August 19, 1897. Since Swift's position in RA was only approximate it wasn't recognized to be the same galaxy so got an IC number. John Herschel's description of it is rather surprising. It reads: "vF, vL, R, vgbM, r, diam = 9s of time. With long attention it is seen to be composed of excessively minute stars like points rubbed out; and is, in fact, a globular cluster, but to see it thus requires long and perfect tranquility of the eye. A very interesting object." The first part reads "Very faint, very large, round, very gradually brighter middle, resolvable, diameter 9 seconds of time" 9 seconds of time would be a bit over 2 minutes of arc. It is over 5 minutes of arc across in my image. The surprising element is John Herschel thought he was resolving it as a globular cluster. Considering most of its brightness lies along the bar and is far from round I find this quite odd. It does have a lot of field stars across it, a few of which might have been right at his visual limit. I suppose resolving these might have made the impression of a barely resolved globular cluster and their light may combine to make it look spherical. The brightest is 15th magnitude with most 16th to 19th magnitude. I doubt he'd have seen more than two or three with his 475mm speculum mirror. I've never tried for this one visually though some observing notes were lost in the move.

Seeing was poor for my image. There are virtually no amateur images of it on the net that I could find, most of which are even worse but for one taken with a 20" scope that was mirror flipped making it hard for my brain to tolerate. So I'll have to be happy with it for now.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC5964